Ted Grant

Witch-hunt against Militant

The Times, which in periods of political calm pretends to a lofty disdain
of the yellow, “popular’ press, has now joined the ranks of the
witch-hunters in trying to smell out “subversion” and
“plots” in the Labour Party. It has launched a scurrilous
attack on the Militant.

And no wonder! For the programme of The Times for the next
period is a cut of nearly £8,000 million in public expenditure. That
would mean the end of the “welfare state” and all the reforms
gained by the working class in the last fifty years of struggle. One
of the counter-reforms they support is a charge of £1 for every
doctor’s visit and 50p for every patient’s attendance at the
surgery.

The
immediate triggering of this hysteria in The Times, Telegraph,
Express and Sun has been Callaghan’s letter to the
National Executive Committee of the Labour Party opposing the appointment,
already made, of Andy Bevan as National Youth Officer. This is an enormously
popular appointment for the ranks of the Young Socialists, the majority of
Labour Students, and for many active members of the constituency parties.

In
this sense, Callaghan bears his share of responsibility for this vile
outburst. The august Times
does not fail to stoop to the methods of the rest of the press if it
feels that the interests of the capitalist class are threatened.

Not
satisfied with controlling the Tory and “Liberal” parties, they
want to control the policies of the Labour Party and even the
appointment of Labour Party officials. The crisis is revealed by the
witch-hunt against the unemployed “scroungers”—not the idle
rich or the corrupt capitalists with subsidies and tax concessions of
£4,000 million a year—but the ordinary workers, forced into the
ignominy of signing on the dole.

The
Liberal spokesman, Pardoe, wants the unemployed forced virtually to
chain-gang status—performing work on the roads at dole wages—on
penalty of losing unemployment pay in the event of refusal. Thus
Hitler built the autobahns in Germany with slave labour.

It
is in this atmosphere of capitalist crisis that this campaign to
determine the representation in Parliament and the officials as well
as the constitution and membership of the Constituency Labour Parties
is taking place. The ultra-rights of the Social Democratic Alliance
can only see “Moscow” plots, “crypto-Communists” and
Trotskyist “agitators” as the reason for the change in mood of
members of the party.

Thus
all sorts of lies and nonsense is disseminated by the press about the
appointment of Andy Bevan as National Youth Officer. There was no
sinister plot. The usual sub-committee took the decision which was
unanimously endorsed by the NEC and overwhelmingly—apart from a
tiny minority of right-wingers—ratified by the Annual Conference of
the Party. The scant respect for conference decisions is shown by the
opposition of Callaghan and the right after the conference and the
delay they have produced in implementing the decision.

The
opposition of the Labour agents on “trade union” grounds is
untenable. Many of these officials were appointed in the period of
the Gaitskell era and still believe that they are living in the Stone
Age of Labour politics. Many recent appointments, including top
positions in Transport House, have been filled by people who were not
members of NULO (National Union of Labour Organisers).

Tribunites

The
orchestrated baying of the capitalist press, with the shrill
shrieking of The Times, will cut no
ice with Labour Party members. In the period of right-wing domination
they treated the Tribunites [Note: supporters of the Tribune journal
and traditionally the left of the party] and Nye Bevan in the same
hysterical fashion. If they could succeed in changing the course of
labour politics, deciding the selection of MPs and officials, after
the attacks on the “Trotskyists”, would come the attack on the
Tribunites and any left forces in the Labour Party.

That
is why The Times published (1st
December) an article by a GLC member of the Social Democratic
Alliance, already half way out of the Labour Party, demanding action
against Trotskyists and at the same time accused Basnett and Jones of
being agents of Moscow, for not coming to the rescue of Prentice,
Tomney and other extreme right wingers.

Representatives of Tory and Liberal infiltration—certainly in their
reactionary ideas—they cannot understand the change of mood in the
constituency parties, trade union branches, and shop stewards committees.

If they could hunt out anyone who disagreed with their capitalist views,
it would not be long before they succeeded in witch-hunting the
Tribunites in their constituencies and turning the Labour Party into
a moribund organisation. They fear open discussion and the pitting of
their capitalist-influenced ideas against the ideas of Marxism.

They insult the rank and file of the labour movement, treating them as if
they were idiots and fools, to be influenced by fly-by-nights
flitting from constituency to constituency. As if the workers in the
constituency parties were not worried by the day-to-day problems and
also those of the long term future. As if they can be influenced by
strangers and people not living and working side by side with them in
the constituencies and factories.

In fact, one of the crimes charged to left wingers in Bradford is that
they were bringing many new members into the party branches! “Left
wingers are believed to have won new members for branches”!

This witch hunt will fail, among other reasons, because of the justified
hatred and distrust of the Labour Party for the capitalist press and
their day to day poisonous propaganda against the labour movement.The Express, before this blew up, day after day had been conducting a sick and
vitriolic campaign against Callaghan—whom they are fawning on as
“Big Jim” now that they approve of his handiwork. They have
maintained a conspiracy of silence against the Young Socialists and
their ideas up until now. The media have given enormous prominence to
the demonstrations of the National Front—50 strong—while ignoring
demonstrations of thousands by the Labour Party Young Socialists.

The real problem for them is that the friends of capitalism in the
right-wing of the Labour Party are being discredited by the crisis of
the system which cannot give adequate homes, decent living standards,
security and jobs to the working class.

The right wing is losing support in the constituencies and trade union
branches, in all the organisations of the labour movement.
Ultra-right wing MPs have become remote from the problems of their
constituencies, especially from the active members, the salt of the
earth, who are active because they are the most concerned about the
problems of society.

These MPs, threatened by the change of mood, are putting forward the
doctrines of the divine right of MPs to their nice, comfortable seats
and the income and privileges which go with them. Consequently their
fury and their appeal to the capitalist media to help them witch hunt
those who put forward Socialist policies in the trade unions and
Labour Party.

Box:

On
Monday Nov 29th,
the AGM of the Tribune Group of MPs, meeting at the House of Commons,
voted to support the appointment of Andy Bevan, the LPYS National
Chairman, to the post of Labour Party National Youth Officer.

Over
two dozen Constituency Labour Parties have already sent resolutions
to the Labour Party NEC demanding that Bevan’s appointment should
be implemented without further delay. Many more are expected to do so
before the next NEC meeting on December 15th.

Bevan’s own Constituency Labour Party, Newham North-East, voted unanimously
to support his appointment at its last meeting on Nov 24th.
Commenting on this Andy Bevan said, “It was particularly pleasing
to receive the support of many Party members who have made no bones
about opposing my political views but who realise that I do represent
the views of the great majority of Young Socialists and who recognise
the honest and open way we put our case forward and the hard work we
do.”